San Francisco Opera: Pride Concert

I did not attend last year's Pride Concert at San Francisco Opera, but I did attend this year's, which was announced as the second annual. The very full house was very full of enthusiasm, & if I didn't quite share it, well, that's pretty much on me, now isn't it?

I make a somewhat snobbish point of not going to Opening Night at the Opera, but I imagine it's similar to this concert: there's a packed house, & a lot of buzzy energy & excitement, but it's not really of the "here for the music" variety, but more about a hoped-for "scene"; also, there are speeches! For someone who has devoted so much life & love to the theater, I acknowledge that's it's weird that speeches from the stage cause me immediate distress, but, once again, that's pretty much on me, isn't it. So there were speeches. For anyone playing Buzzword Bingo, it took barely ten minutes before we heard "being your authentic self". Oh, & the performance start-time was 8:00 rather than the Opera's usual 7:30, for reasons unclear to me.

The performers were stellar: Robert Mollicone led the Opera Orchestra, with Sapphira Cristál as our masterly Mistress of Ceremonies, with vocal soloists Melody Moore (soprano), Nikola Printz (mezzo), & Reginald Smith Jr (baritone), along with a back-up trio (or, as I thought of them, the Pips), Sadie Cheslak (mezzo), Alexa Frankian (soprano), & Thomas Kinch (tenor). All were top-notch, & often even better than that. Their commitment & enthusiasm were palpable. There were many stylish & fun costume changes, especially from our Emcee, of course, & glitter & sparkles & vivid colors were everywhere – except, unfortunately, in the musical selections.

Not that things were all bad on that front. We started with a tribute to the late & much-loved Michael Tilson Thomas in the form of Agnegram, a lively & eclectic piece he wrote to honor a rich & I'm sure lovely Symphony patron, Agnes Albert. As with the other pieces I've heard by Tilson Thomas, it is entertaining but strikes me as a bit ramshackle & a bit derivative (in this piece I particularly heard echoes, of, though perhaps I should say "an homage to", Charles Ives). I enjoyed it but was mildly surprised to realize in retrospect that it would turn out to be one of the musical highlights of the evening.

Mme Cristál was tireless & I think accomplished what she set out to do, which was offer inspiration & uplift as well as introductions & context. It was all more high-minded than I was expecting; I never thought I would long for a drag performer to be snarkier & smuttier. I thought some of the context given was unnecessary, but then perhaps I am not understanding who exactly the target audience was. I do think that if a San Francisco Opera audience, particularly one gathered for a Pride Concert, really needs to be told who Sappho of Lesbos was & why she is significant, then we should just give up on humanity. That explanation came as an introduction to Ô ma lyre immortelle from Gounod's opera Sapho, which is based on the familiar story of Sappho ending her life by jumping from a cliff into the sea over despair for a male lover, Phaon. Our emcee seemed to suggest that this story was something invented by Gounod, or the nineteenth century in general, to cover up the truth of Sappho's love for women. It was all done in that very knowing, mmm-hmmm, right, we know the real story way.

But this incident has been part of Sappho's life (or, more accurately, legend) since classical times. Even Ovid, a "queer" author only in the broadest sense but one certainly open to sexual difference & aware of varied sexual options, gives us this story. I don't know offhand what the story's source is (it certainly predates Ovid) & I assume it's considered an embellishment rather than a biographical fact, insofar as we can determine what those are based on the fragments & remnants of such a different time & place, but in a way none of that matters: it has always been part of Sappho's story, & nonetheless she was still identified strongly & mainly as a lover of other women, lending her name & her island's name to all her daughters.

Why does this matter, & why did Cristál's approach depress me? Because it just illustrates our need to put people into boxes & to keep them there. Sappho could be mainly a lover of women but also have an affair with a man without betraying herself (or, for that matter, us, as if it's any of our concern anyway). Oscar Wilde, after all, was married & had two children. In both cases, their basic preference is clear & defining: but why dismiss their other experiences, unless it's our need to categorize, to classify, to limit? Despite all of our talk about embracing the variety of our feelings & the individual's right to choose his / her/ their own representation, we still crave definite & defining answers to the often irrelevant question, What's going on down there?

Having said all that: Printz gave a stunning, passionate performance of the aria, & at the end the singer (or director E Reed Fisher, or both) had the wonderful idea of having them extend their blue garment & cape out into a Loïe Fuller-style serpentine dance, illustrating the waters swirling over the poet's head. Very effective! I've heard Printz in several performances recently, & they consistently dominate the stage.

This is not to slight the other singers. Before the Gounod we heard Melody Moore give a touching performance of Lucky from Stephen Schwartz's opera Séance on a Wet Afternoon. He's known for musicals, particularly Wicked (as well as Godspell & Pippin) & based on this aria & what I know of his other works, he's more at home in the world of musical theater. After the Gounod, Smith gave a probing rendition of Peculiar Grace from Terence Blanchard's Fire Shut Up in My Bones, an aria about the tricky expectations for & from a young Black man who is grappling with his sexuality. That was followed by Moore giving a wrenching performance of La mamma morta from Giordano's Andrea Chénier, which seemed to be on the program mostly because it appears in a pivotal moment in Philadelphia, a movie I had almost forgotten about (I've never actually seen it), about a man dying of AIDS. I wondered how many in the audience were familiar with this 33-year-old film. Like many of the pop-culture callbacks during the evening, this one seemed weirdly dated. Nonetheless I was glad to hear the aria, no matter what ushered it into the line-up. After that Moore & Printz gave us a lovely, lilting rendition of the Barcarolle from Offenbach's Tales of Hoffmann, & I am always happy to hear Offenbach, especially performed so beautifully; the sensual languor of this particular piece stood out amid the uplift & the anthems.

After the Offenbach, things got even more pop-centric, starting with Be the Change by Michael Abels, who worked with Rhiannon Giddens on the opera Omar (my thoughts on that opera are here). Omar,  I thought, was trying to do some complex & subtle things; this song, which the program book described as "in the spirit of protest anthems & communal uplift songs", is not. It's like a campfire song that high-minded counselors urge on those who find Kumbaya too emotionally complex to deal with. This was the first song on which the Pips joined in. The two women, Cheslak & Frankian, were quite enthusiastic; Kinch seemed a bit off the beat & a bit more tentative in his gestures, which I found quite endearing. I enjoyed the trio, a feeling in line with my experience throughout this concert of enjoying the performances more than what was being performed.

The thing is, I mostly dislike (often verging, I will admit, on hate), pop / rock / rap, & I resent having it forced on me, just because I have to live in the world: going to the gym, the coffee shop, the grocery store, on public transit, walking down the street, even just sitting in my own residence: other people's boring trashy taste gets forced on me at inescapable volume. I hate the attitude that we all need to genuflect before the (corporate-sponsored) altar of pop culture. A few years ago I was at a piano recital in which the jazz-influenced pianist performed some wonderful pieces & then, for an encore, did a Michael Jackson song. It deflated my evening immediately. Musically it was the least interesting piece he performed. And the attitude seemed to be that now that we'd eaten our classical vegetables, we'd get the sticky sweet pop treat that we were truly craving. It had all been so enjoyable up until then! (It doesn't help that Jackson is one of those 1980s cultural figures whose popularity I did not get then & continue not to get, along with Madonna, Keith Haring, Princess Diana, & probably others I'm forgetting.)

I stopped listening to pop music in the early 1980s, because I found it increasingly vacuous & irritating, like trying to live on nothing but Doritos. Sure, the occasional bag is fun, & they do have different flavors thanks to the wonders of chemistry, but on the whole, there's a lot out there that's more enticing, complex, & interesting, as well as more nourishing to body & soul. But despite switching the station decades ago, I knew many of the songs performed during this concert, which made me wonder what was guiding the repertory choices. Even I know there are more current pieces that would be worth doing for a Pride concert (surely at least one of the 69 Love Songs by the Magnetic Fields could have made the cut?). Couldn't the choices have reflected a wider range of moods & decades?

We were given The Joke by Brandi Carlisle (& three others, according to the program book), sung by Moore. It's pretty much an "it gets better" song, & the refrain ends "I have been to the movies, I've seen how it ends / And the joke's on them". Here's the thing: a movie, like any dramatic structure, including a concert program, is an artistic arrangement of the often perverse, nebulous, infuriating, & frustrating realities of life into a shape that we can find emotionally & morally satisfying. In other words, saying to me, "I've seen this movie & here's how it ends" is not persuasive, outside of the context of characters in a movie. The lyrics just don't hold up to even a cursory examination of how life really happens; they're about trying to jolly everyone into optimism by overlooking reality. We all know people who were bigots & bullied those who were seen as weak or different, & no, they did not always get their comeuppance, even in the form of a less than successful life. And anyone of a certain age knows people who made their little jokes & jabs about queerness when we were all young (& therefore more susceptible to jokes & jabs, & back when such remarks were more socially acceptable & prevalent), & now those same people, come each June, are wreathing their social media with rainbows & glittery unicorns & reposting Love Is Love memes. And they probably think they were with you all along. Sure, why not. Life is slippery & people are elusive &, as Didion reminds us, we all tell ourselves stories in order to live.

One more song from the latter half of the show: Gender Binary (F*ck You) by Ryan Cassata, performed by Nikola Printz. Why the dainty fig-leaf of an asterisk in the title (as printed in the program book)? If you're going to sing Fuck, why not print it in a straightforward way? The asterisk is a nod to a transgressive power that that word lost years ago. While agreeing wholeheartedly with the intent & spirit of the song (which fights back against all kinds of insistence on fitting people into pre-made gender boxes: so see my comments above on the story of Sappho & Phaon), the message, though Printz's fiery performance really put it across, is pretty basic & fairly crude & simple. It's coming from a punk-rock attitude, but, again, punk was around when I was still listening to what I'll just call pop music, & it all seems too dated to be genuinely shocking.

Most of the songs were enjoyable, though not really engaging to my ears: the ones I haven't mentioned so far were Constant Craving, made famous by k d lang, sung by Moore & Printz; How Will I know, made famous by Whitney Houston, sung by Smith & the Pips; I Can Only Be Me, made famous by Stevie Wonder, sung by Printz; Any Love, made famous by Luther Vandross, sung by Smith & the Pips; Let It Rain, made famous by Tracy Chapman, sung by Smith (this one stood out, in a good way); & a finale sung by everyone, a medley of Greatest Love of All, Everybody Rejoice (A Brand New Day), & I'm Coming Out.

The focus was solidly on songs that might be called "anthems", songs that offered uplift & positivity. These were songs in which uncertainty ends in true love & rejection is a fear but never a reality. This was not a night for ambiguity, broken hearts, & never ever quite fitting in. Sure, I get it: we're all under siege by the ascendant reactionaries & fascists & just by life in general, & maybe uplift is called for. I would have hoped that an audience at the Opera would be given repertory that is of greater musical interest, but perhaps others found this program just the thing to give them the strength to go out & fight, or at least to dance into Pride weekend in the rainbow-bedecked foggy city. I would have preferred another approach. I'm usually reluctant to say that an artist should have given us something different from what he / she / they chose to give, but: couldn't whoever put the program together find some material that was more interesting & varied? some standards to repurpose, something by Rodgers & Hart, or even Rodgers & Hammerstein (I'm thinking of We Kiss in the Shadows from the King & I)? A simple gender-flip in the singer can give a new & refreshingly queer slant to even a familiar song (here are links to YouTube videos of Aaron Tveit singing Mein Herr from Cabaret & As Long As He Needs Me from Oliver!). Couldn't we have had even one song, just one little number, by the late &, as is increasingly obvious, very great Stephen Sondheim?

After two solid intermissionless hours of uplift, I have to say the audience was as enthusiastic as ever, heading into the lobby for the after-party, the throbbing monotonous thumping of which further depressed me. Nothing can send me racing for the exit faster than the presence of a DJ.

I don't understand what it means to live "authentically" (before anyone tries to explain it to me: I understand what it means in this context; it means not hiding basic facts about your gender & sexual identities – but I find authentic & authenticity slippery & problematic words, &, particularly when it comes to our sexualities, I question how much we need or should show to others). I don't really like uplift: I just see too many other possibilities. I don't really believe in daily affirmations (maybe I should try them?). I dislike being told that I'm oh so special (or that, in a nod to the latest pop-culture inevitabilities, being different is my superpower), because that's just the nice way of telling me I'm a weirdo & a freak who doesn't fit in with others. I don't believe in "communities" based on coincidental characteristics. And as always when I say things like this, I need to add that I do not think that feeling this way makes me "better" than anyone else. I don't regret going to the concert. You go so you can know, & now I know. Many others seemed to be perfectly satisfied with the bill of fare, & I'm always glad when people enjoy themselves, as long as I can get to the exit.

Museum Monday 2026/28

 

detail of Snowy Morning from the series Among Snow, Moon, and Flowers by Utagawa Kuniyoshi, seen at the Legion of Honor as part of the special exhibit Japanese Prints in Transition: From the Floating World to the Modern World

Friday Photo 2026/28

 

bird on a lamppost, Berkeley

an Anniversary, a Remembrance

As I slowly roused myself this morning I suddenly realized, out of nowhere or everywhere, that it had been exactly twenty years since the death of Lorraine Hunt Lieberson (or, more accurately, twenty years since I heard of her death; her actual passing was three days before, on 3 July 2006). I remember sitting at my dining room table with strong afternoon sunlight slanting in, feeling weirdly unmoored. Things suddenly crystalized inside me & I went to my then relatively new blog, begun earlier that year in February, & posted this, which I have just now re-read after twenty years.

I've spent so much of my life sitting in the dark, watching & listening to performers. Like any of the strange breed that finds some sort of pleasure, solace, meaning in such activity, I have, as a counter-history to the life I'm supposedly living, an existence through the art of others (&, honestly, through irritations with others: not so much with artists who don't quite, in my opinion, succeed, because no matter what, they are out there trying, & trying to give, but with fellow audience members I have to share space with; it's always struck me that one of the powerful things about theater is that it gives us the best of humanity, in the art & generosity on stage, & shows us the worst, in the stupidity, selfishness, & lack of consideration that, too often, we find down below the stage).

There is a golden age in that counter-history, & for me that would be the start of my concert-going, when I was young & had moved to the other side of the country, to Boston. (A few years ago I listened to a recording of Handel's wonderfully named Occasional Oratorio, & listening by myself to an unfamiliar Handel oratorio was for me weirdly like dipping a madeleine into the lime-flower tisane, bringing up a flood of memories, of ornate concert halls & crowded theaters & the sun descending through stained-glass windows in dim stone churches with hard cold benches, & I'm listening, listening, anxious not to miss a sound.) I liked early & baroque music & also modernist & contemporary music (I gradually worked my way towards the creamy center of western music history) & so it was inevitable that eventually I would stumble across a performance by, as she was known at the time, Lorraine Hunt, a violist who had started singing soprano roles. (She switched to mezzo somewhere along the way, & added Peter Lieberson's name to hers after she married the composer.)

She soon became a favorite of mine. A few years ago I was looking through some old playbills (I have piles & piles of them, & keep reminding myself I should probably sort through them & toss some before my eventual executors have to) & realized I had heard her in roles I had forgotten about: I heard her in Idomeneo, & Handel's Belshazzar. What a strangely extravagant thing memory is, profligate & wasteful, that I should forget such things, while carrying for decades incidents of far less importance! It's a perverse sort of wealth that can toss such jewels aside.

When I moved back to California I heard her in person less often, though there were still some memorable moments, notably an incendiary Ottavia in L'incoronazione di Poppea at San Francisco Opera. Her Addio, Roma was so intense that it burned the place down, & in my memory her face as she sings it is impossibly large, in cinematic close-up, though such a thing could not of course have been possible on stage. Her performance was so all-consuming & magnificent that it actually threw off the balance of the opera, & I felt sorry for the other performers: the exquisite duet Pur ti miro, which usually climaxes the evening, felt like an after-thought, something to get through so that we could wander out in the dark, reeling from the Empress's farewell to her native city & to life. My last attempt to hear Hunt Lieberson was at the SF Symphony, where she had been scheduled to sing in the Mahler 2, the Resurrection. By then there had been a worrisome pattern of cancellations on her part & I remember asking when I bought my ticket at the box office if she was still scheduled to be one of the performers. The man shrugged mildly & philosophically & said, "Yes, she's still on the schedule, but . . . you never know."

As it turned out, she was not one of the performers. You never really do know, but what you never really do know about certain things is not their if but their when. If I'd known her end would have come so much sooner than expected (she was only 52 when she died of cancer), I would have traveled more to hear her: or, at least, that's what I tell myself now; at the time, lack of the usual lack of money & time often prevented travel; it's the dailiness of life, the things we forget, that in the moment often redirect us from what we would end up truly valuing). So here we are, twenty years later. Later today I may put on one of her recordings, but it's not quite, as those of us who seek out live performances know, the same. The usual clichés still apply: value what you have when you have it, be grateful, keep going into the uncertain fog of the future, keep going, keep going, as long as you can, keep going, keep going. . . .

Museum Monday 2026/27

 

detail of Tiepolo's Punchinello Collapses at the Walls of a Villa, #83 in his series Divertimento per gli ragazzi (Entertainment for Children), seen at the Legion of Honor as part of the special exhibit Drawn to Venice

Friday Photo 2026/27

 

downtown Hayward, California

Museum Monday 2026/26

 

two fish at the California Academy of Sciences

Friday Photo 2026/26

 

downtown Hayward, California

Museum Monday 2026/25

 

detail of an Etruscan bronze sculpture of Veiovis (Jupiter), seen at the Legion of Honor as part of the special exhibit The Etruscans: From the Heart of Ancient Italy

Another Opening, Another Show: July 2026

Sometimes when I ask people how they are they respond, "Can't complain" & I tell them that sure they can, if they'd just put a little effort into it. There's a lot to complain about in life! I was going to go off on certain subjects but decided that they can wait because this is July, & I have to complain about my least favorite holiday, the Fourth of July, or, as I usually refer to it, "the goddamn Fourth of motherfucking July". A relative of mine told me he loved having his birthday on the Fourth because "you can have barbecue"; I pointed out that you can (& probably should) have barbecue any day. Here's why I hate the Fourth: (1) Explosions (2) Fire Danger (3) Patriotism. (I've never thought a place was special just because I happened to be born in it.) I am of course dreading this year more than ever, given that the nation's 250th anniversary occurs when we have the absolute worst President, the absolute worst Supreme Court, & a Congress that acts like an elderly turtle flipped on its shell, legs flailing helplessly in the air (no offense to the admirable reptile, who is functioning here in a merely metaphorical status). And you know what? Even if a beneficent providence rids us of the President, it can never wipe away the knowledge that he was aided, abetted, enabled, & supported every step of the way by nearly half the population. This whole "representative government" thing doesn't work unless people (1) pay some sort of minimal attention & (2) have some sense (again, however minimal) that we're all in this together. The Berkeley poet Julia Vinograd wrote a poem decades ago titled Against Punk Rock & it reads It is better to light a single candle / Than to praise the darkness (I'm quoting from memory). So in that spirit, let's go out & try to light at least a single candle, as despite the heat & the lengthy summer days we are wandering in darkness.

Theatrical

From 3 to 19 July in John Hinkel Park, Actors Ensemble of Berkeley presents Alice in Wonderland, adapted by Brainerd Duffield from Lewis Carroll's books & directed by Michael Sally; the show is free & though reservations are encouraged (especially for those in wheelchairs or with limited mobility) they are not necessary.

From 3 July to 7 September, the SF Mime Troupe presents WRECKAGE: A Musical Tragicomedy (written by Michael Gene Sullivan, with music & lyrics by Daniel Savio, directed by Lisa Hori-Garcia, & music direction by Daniel Savio & Will Durkee); these free shows play throughout the Bay Area & you can check here for a location convenient to you.

Scabmuggers, The Play: Based on a Labor Organizer’s True Story, written by Yvonne Martinez & directed by Tanika Baptiste, about sexism in the labor movement, plays at Freight & Salvage in Berkeley on 7, 14, & 21 July.

Godless: a new cabaret show by Rotimi Agbabiaka, runs at the Presidio Theater from 9 to 19 July; "[b]lending renditions of Broadway, pop, and jazz standards with Greek, African, and contemporary mythology, Godless is a journey through a glittering world of gossiping gods, fabulous muses, and mischievous mortals, all in search of their divine destiny. . . . tells the tale of Dion Damilola Lokinaesha Divine—a lowly nymph who dreams of someday becoming a big-time god on Mount Olympus!"

From 9 to 26 July at BAM House in Oakland, The Lower Bottom Playaz presents Going to St. Ives by Lee Blessing, about the mother of an African dictator who travels to England to meet with a famous ophthalmologist, though she also has an ulterior motive.

From 10 July to 7 August, The Marsh Berkeley presents The Bumpy Road Less Traveled, written & performed by Anthony Michael Jefferson & directed by Dylan Russell, about a sudden tragedy that changes what two families thought their lives would be.

The San Francisco Playhouse usually does a long run of a musical for summer, & this year it's Hairspray (book by Mark O’Donnell & Thomas Meehan, music by Marc Shaiman, lyrics by Scott Wittman & Marc Shaiman, based on the John Waters movie), directed by Bill English, with musical direction by Dave Dobrusky & choreography by Phoenyx Rose, & that runs 10 July through 12 September.

From 11 to 19 July, Berkeley Playhouse presents the Sondheim/Lapine musical Into the Woods, co-directed by Jesse Cortez & Megan McGrath, with music direction by Daniel Alley & choreography by Megan McGrath (this is one of the Playhouse's Spotlight Shows, meaning the performers are in grades 7 - 12).

Night Driver, written & performed by Pearl Ong & directed by David Ford, about a "Hong Kong princess . . . behind the wheel of a San Francisco cab? And how does her very proper mother react?" returns to The Marsh Berkeley from 11 July to 8 August.

The Orpheum presents the tour of Disney's stage musical Beauty and the Beast, & you can be their guest from 14 July through 9 August.

On 20 June & 18 & 25 July at The Marsh San Francisco, you can see The Saddest Night of Musical Entertainment in the History of the World, written & performed by Johnny Lonely & Joshua Raoul Brody & directed by Cliff Mayotte, about a torch singer who thinks "his 'Unhappy Hour' isn’t gloomy enough" while his accompanist "sabotages Johnny’s plans by throwing in happy songs, sharing mindfulness tips and changing minor keys to major ones"; Johnny Lonely is the creation & creature of Brian Lohmann, a"singer-songwriter, actor-improviser".

From 18 July through 16 August, the San Leandro Players present The Unexpected Guest by Agatha Christie, directed by Miranda Bumstead.

Shotgun Players present Iphigenia in Splott by Gary Owen, a current-day tale inspired by Iphigenia in Aulis by Euripides, directed by Michelle Talgarow, & that opens 25 July & runs through 23 August.

Talking

On 28 July at the Calvin Simmons Theater at the Henry J. Kaiser Center for the Arts in Oakland, Samin Nosrat will be in conversation with Alexis Madrigal as part of Forum Live, presented by KQED Live.

Operatic

The Merola Opera Program presents Peter Brook’s La Tragédie de Carmen in the San Francisco Conservatory of Music's Hume Concert Hall on 9 & 11 July; the show, a "condensed and starker adaptation of Bizet’s Carmen, created by Peter Brook, Jean-Claude Carrière, and Marius Constant", will be conducted by Stephanie Rhodes Russell & directed by Mo Zhou. (Merola's other summer opera, Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos, also in Hume Concert Hall but on 30 July & 1 August, has already sold out.)

The Lamplighters present Gilbert & Sullivan's gorgeous fairy opera, Iolanthe, with music direction by Jennifer Ashworth & stage direction by Ted Zoldan, at the ODC Theater from 10 to 19 July.

Pocket Opera presents Puccini's La Rondine, with music direction by Mary Chun, stage direction by Elly Lichenstein, with Michelle Allie Drever as Magda & Maxwell Ary as Ruggero, on 17 July at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 19 July at the Hillside Club in Berkeley, & 26 July at the Gunn Theater at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco.

Festival Opera presents free Opera in the Park, the opera this time being Donizetti's Elixir of Love, with piano accompaniment by Chun Mei Wilson & Festival Opera Artistic Director Zachary Gordin as director & narrator, & the parks in question are Orinda Community Park on 23 July & Civic Park in Walnut Creek on 26 July.

Philharmonia Baroque performs a semi-staged production Handel's Tolomeo, re d’Egitto, conducted by PBO's new music director, Peter Whelan, & directed (or semi-staged) by James Darrah Black, with Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen (countertenor, Tolomeo), Lauren Snouffer (soprano, Seleuce), Nicole Heaston (soprano, Elisa), Kangmin Justin Kim (countertenor, Alessandro), & Dashon Burton (bass-baritone, Araspe), & that's 23 July in Herbst Theater in San Francisco & 24 July in First Congregational in Berkeley (& 26 July at the Caramor Center in Katonah, New York, if you want to be a completist).

On 9 July at the Jewish Community Center in San Francisco, Kip Cranna presents I Hear America Singing: American Opera in the Mid-20th Century, a talk exploring "American opera from the 1930’s through the 1970s, including the ground-breaking, decidedly American work of influential composers, many of whom were of Jewish background, George Gershwin, Virgil Thomson, Gian Carlo Menotti, Leonard Bernstein, Samuel Barber, Aaron Copland, Carlisle Floyd, and Philip Glass".

On 11 July at the Jewish Community Center in San Francisco, the Wagner Society of Northern California presents composer & game designer David Kanaga speaking on Das Kaliforniagold: California Wagnerisms 1848-2026.

Choral

On 3 July in Calvary Presbyterian in San Francisco, the San Francisco Boys Chorus & the Los Angeles Children's Chorus will give a free concert; the program has not been announced yet.

Vocalists

On 18 July, the San Francisco Symphony presents An Evening with Sutton Foster & Kelli O’Hara; the specific program has not been announced yet beyond singing & story-telling.

Orchestral

On 1 July, Chloé Van Soeterstède leads the San Francisco Symphony in Elfrida Andrée's Overture in D major, Max Bruch's Violin Concerto #1 (with soloist Paul Huang), & the Mendelssohn 5, the "Reformation".

The San Francisco Symphony gives its annual Stern Grove summer concert on 12 July, when Edwin Outwater leads the band in Bernstein's Overture to Candide, Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition (in Ravel's orchestration), Barbers School for Scandal Overture, & Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue arranged for Banjo & Orchestra (featuring Béla Fleck on banjo).

On 16 - 17 July, Nicolas Ellis leads the San Francisco Symphony in the Forest Murmurs from Wagner's Siegfried (arranged by Zumpe), The Lark Ascending by Ralph Vaughan Williams & the Carmen Fantasy by Franz Waxman (edited by Heifetz) (the two latter pieces feature violinist Geneva Lewis), selections from Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night’s Dream, & Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet, Fantasy-Overture.

On 23 - 24 July, Steven Reineke leads the San Francisco Symphony in James Bond Forever, a program featuring musical excerpts (some featuring singer Lena Hall) from classic Bond films (this is a musical evening, without film clips).

Instrumental

On 20 July in the Littlefield Concert Hall of Mills College at Northeastern University in Oakland, Other Minds presents pianist Stephen Siek in Alexander Reinagle: Composing a New Nation, part of OM's Mavericks 250, "our celebration of America’s semiquincentennial"; Siek will perform works by Alexander Reinagle (1750–1809), "the most accomplished pianist of the New World and piano teacher of George Washington’s granddaughter".

Early / Baroque Music

Philharmonia Baroque brings back its morning Coffee Concerts in the Conservatory at One Sansome (right off Market Street); the first concert in this series is 10 July & features members of PBO in Café Fandango: Music from Baroque Spain, a program including two works by Boccherini (the Quintet for Guitar and Strings in E Minor, #7, & the Quintet for Guitar and Strings in D Major, #4, “Fandango”; the series is free & open to the public.

See also Handel's Tolomeo under Operatic.

Modernist / Contemporary Music

The Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music takes place in Santa Cruz from 26 July to 9 August with the theme We the Dreamers, examining 250 years of the United States, with a suitably starry line-up, which you can check out here.

Jazz

The Wynton Marsalis Septet plays the SF Jazz Center on 14 - 15 July.

Burnt Sugar The Arkestra Chamber plays the SF Jazz Center from 30 July to 1 August.

Dance

From 3 to 12 July at the Orpheum Theater, you can see Dracula, choreographed by Joel Burke, with an "international cast of alumni from the Mariinsky Theatre, English National Ballet, Stuttgart Ballet, The Australian Ballet, Queensland Ballet and more", to music by "Bach, Rachmaninov, Mozart, Liszt, Mussorgsky, Mendelssohn, Saint-Saëns and Debussy".

On 18 July at Dance Mission Theater in San Francisco, World Arts West presents the first of three programs on the theme Legacy of Liberation! (the other two programs will be in August & September); this first festival day explores dance films: "​We will be joined by Delina Patrice Brooks of Delina Dream Productions who created a four part documentary, Bare Soles Bare Soul, in partnership with Clenched Fist Productions and OLU8 Films. We will also view three short films by Ishami Dance Company: Ancestor Song, Because You're a Woman, and Teele Dharo. Ishami Dance Co-founder Ishika Seth, will join our question and answer session for the films as well. ​Finally, World Arts West will share a short compilation of archival footage highlighting recently digitized as part of our Multicultural Archiving Project (MAP)".

From 30 July to 2 August, ODC/Dance presents a Summer Sampler, featuring a revival of KT Nelson’s Nothing's Gonna Make Sense (Reflections on Grief), a world premiere by Mia J Chong, & a world premiere by Guest Choreographer Catherine Galasso: Unreliable Narrator, "drawn from the lives and artistry of ODC’s founding women, Brenda Way, Kimi Okada and KT Nelson".

Mostly Museums

Nengi Omuku: The Gathering, the first solo museum exhibit in the USA for the Nigerian painter, opens at the de Young on 27 June & continues through May of next year.

Graciela Iturbide: Between Two Worlds, a retrospective of the Mexican photographer's work that spans over 50 years, opens at SFMOMA on 11 July & runs through 29 November.

The Minnesota Street Project Foundation presents The 2026 San Francisco Art Book Fair from 23 to 26 July at 1150 25th Street / 1275 Minnesota Street / 1201 Minnesota Street in San Francisco (all these locations are pretty much right next to each other, & easily accessible on MUNI).

You have until 26 July to see the lovely Monet and Venice show at the de Young; it is, not surprisingly, very popular, so if you haven't been don't wait until the last minute, when it's sure to be unpleasantly crowded.

You have until 27 July to see the fascinating installations of Chiharu Shiota: Two Home Countries at the Asian Art Museum.

Cinematic

On 1 July at the Roxie, you can attend ZYZZYVA Movie Night with Ingrid Rojas Contreras, in which a writer (this time it's T Kira Māhealani Madden, author of Whidbey) selects a movie to discuss & watch (this time it's Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train); a Q&A with Madden follows the film, & there will be  a "Book signing and a chance to shop T Kira Madden’s recommended reading list (courtesy of Dog Eared Books) . . . both before and after the show".

Here are the film series launching at the PFA portion of BAM/PFA this month: starting 2 July, we have Some Nostalgic Place: The Films of Isao Takahata, covering the long career of the Studio Ghibli co-founder (whose works include Grave of the Fireflies & The Tale of The Princess Kaguya; & from 9 to 11 July, you can hear Film Preservationist Ross Lipman in Person, as he discusses his archiving & preservation work, along with screenings of several films he's been involved with.

The Orinda Theater has a couple of Disney events this month: on 4 July, you can see a newly restored print of The Sword in the Stone from 1963, an animated take on the King Arthur origin story, & on 18 July you can see One Hundred and One Dalmatians with Special Guest Mimi Gibson, the voice of Lucky (the second movie on the bill is Houseboat, with Gibson, Cary Grant, & Sophia Loren). Yes, I always root for Cruella de Ville. Not a dog person! Sue me.

On 7 July at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco, Dave Radlauer will present Star Spangled Song & Dance of WWII, a program featuring "wartime movie clips of morale-boosting lively song and dance routines by tap dancers Eleanor Powell, Stump Jones, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson and Bugs Bunny".

At the Roxie from 8 to 18 July, The Fraenkel Gallery presents the Fraenkel Film Festival, "an annual cinema series curated entirely by visual artists"; there is a terrific line-up of films, ranging from Princess Mononoke to The Rules of the Game; you can find the full schedule here.

The San Francisco Symphony will provide live musical accompaniment to the 1961 West Side Story on 9 - 10 July in Davies Hall.

On 12 July at the Orinda Theater, as part of their Wide Screen Roadshow series, you can see El Cid, with Charlton Heston & Sophia Loren.

The 46th San Francisco Jewish Film Festival runs 16 July to 2 August in a variety of venues; you can find the Festival schedule here.

On 17 July at the Paramount, you can see the 1920 Mark of Zorro, directed by Fred Niblo & starring Douglas Fairbanks, with live musical accompaniment by Mark Herman; the film is preceded by an organ concert on the Mighty Wurlitzer, classic cartoons & trailers, & a "Dec-O-Win game with prize giveaway".

On 24 July at the Paramount, you can see The Maltese Falcon, directed by John Huston & starring Humphrey Bogart & Mary Astor; as is usual with the Paramount Movie Classics series (see Mark of Zorro above), the film is preceded by an organ concert on the Mighty Wurlitzer, classic cartoons & trailers, & a "Dec-O-Win game with prize giveaway".

On 25 - 26 July, the San Francisco Symphony provides live musical accompaniment to Matilda; David Newman conducts his score & director Danny DeVito acts as host & narrator.

On 26 July at the Orinda Theater, you can see Suddenly, Last Summer, with Elizabeth Taylor, Montgomery Clift, & Katharine Hepburn, based on a particularly lurid Tennessee Williams play.

The BLUSH San Francisco Porn Film Festival, "a celebration of the Bay Area’s adult film history . . . with a focus on experimental arthouse, raunch comedy, educational documentaries, and explicit storytelling", will be at the Roxie on 31 July & 1 August.